INTERNATIONAL LEGAL RESEARCH GROUP

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LEGALRESEARCH.ELSA.ORG
 Style guide for National Research Group (NRG) Reports
Dear Reader,
Welcome to one of the most time-consuming processes in publication – the adherence to a defined
style guide. As the Final Report of the ILRG on Internet Censorship will be published by our Legal
Publishing partner and brought to the international market, the report must be of the highest
quality, not only with regards to its content, but also with regards to visual aspects. Mistakes with
footnotes or fonts would damage the reputation of the International Legal Research Groups of
ELSA, and consequently, of you as a writer.
The Style Guide provides you with a guidance on the use of language, formatting and referencing
aspects. Since development of the internal template and its successful implementation during the
last ILRG, it was decided to keep use of the template for the future NRG Reports. Most of
the formatting requirements are already set-up in the template for convenience of the National
Research Groups, and it helps to reduce the workload for the members of National Research
Groups. However, if you want to use software other than ‘Microsoft Word’ for compilation of the
NRG Report, please, ensure compliance with all the criteria set out in this guide. For any further
questions related to the formatting, please, do not hesitate to contact the technical editor.
For those, who are willing to use the template – please, download it here!

Sincerely yours,
The International Coordination Team of the ILRG on Internet Censorship

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 Section 1. Linguistic guidelines
Please, find below the main points from the linguistic guide. National Groups are expected to
abide by the instructions as per the Language manual, however, several points have their
implications also on the formatting:
- All Reports must be written in British English1, translate citations from other languages if
used.
- Plagiarism and political views/opinions are strictly prohibited. With one plagiarism
case identified during the check of the first drafts in the previous ILRG, please, keep in
mind that the National Groups are responsible for the content of their contributions and
must ensure that this rule is respected.
- Keep your answers clear and concise.
- Dates must be mentioned as follows: 12 March 2019.
- The use of bold and or italicised text ought to be minimal. No more than 10 words in a row
should be bolded.
- Only use italics in the main body for legal terms that cannot be translated and if possible,
follow it with a bracketed description of the legal term: e.g. Tribunal Supremo (Supreme
Court of Justice).
- Use Latin/French/German terms sparingly, and only where it makes sense. e.g. mutatis
mutandis, chapeau or kompetenz-kompetenz. Do not overcomplicate your text with these
phrases.
- Quotations longer than three lines or 40 words are not allowed.

Section 2. Formatting guidelines

Disclaimer:
We highly recommend the NRGs to prepare the NRG Report using ‘Microsoft Word’ software.
We do not impose the use of this software; however, it would facilitate the successful
compilation of the Final Report and its swift submission to the publisher. For organisational
purposes, it might be easier to organise the work of researchers by using free online text editors
such as Google Docs. However, please, be careful by using this approach, since incompatibility
of this software may result in a loss of valuable footnotes or incompliance with general
formatting requirements.

1Please, ensure that you chose English (United Kingdom) in the language settings. English of any other region must
not be used (e.g. United States, Ireland, etc).

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 2.1. General formatting requirements
The NRGs must submit their NRG Report in .docx format. The main body of the Report2 should
be approximately 40 – 50 pages long, however, national discrepancies may be allowed should it
be necessary to write a longer or shorter report due to jurisdictional particularities. The report must
be structured as follows (you could use this as the checklist):

☐ Title page
☐ Table of content
☐ Acknowledgements (optional)
☐ Introduction
☐ Research questions
☐ Table of legislation
☐ Bibliography

2.2. Page format

Every page in the entire document must be set in portrait (vertical) orientation with each page
margins set to 2.54 cm. Please, pay a particular attention that for this Final Report A4 format
would not be used – the format of each page must be 16 cm (width) and 21 cm (height).

2.3. Text formatting

The main body of the text in your report must be written in Garamond (12 pt.) and be justified;
in addition to that, please, ensure that no paragraph spacing is set up and interlinear spacing is
equal to 1.25. Indentation must not be used neither for headings, nor for the main text.
Please, refrain from the use of tables, graphs, diagrams, pictures (or any other visual representation
of information), unless it is absolutely necessary. If any visual representation of information is
needed to be included in the NRG Report, it must be original (produced by the NRG), editable
and to be authorised by the international technical editor prior to the submission of the
first draft.

2.4. Title / heading formatting

Any reply to the research question must be put under the relevant heading. Subheadings are
allowed, if considered necessary by a researcher, given that these are reasonably used. 3 Please,
ensure that the numbering of a (sub)heading is followed by a full stop, but not the (sub)heading
itself. The numbering of the (sub)heading must be done via Arabic numerals only. The use of
Roman numerals or letters for the numbering purposes is not allowed.
A (sub)heading must be written in the same manner as the main body of the text (please, refer to
subsection 2.3.), but with the exception of the paragraph spacing, which must be set up for

2 The main body of the Report, to which the page limit is applied, consists of the following sections: Introduction,
Research questions, Conclusion.
3 For the sake of clarity and improving readability, we recommend you limit the use of subheadings with up to three
subheadings per one research question (1.1., 1.2. and 1.3., but not 1.4.). In addition to that, please, limit yourself up
to the third level of heading (1. – first level, 1.1. – second level, 1.1.1. – third level).

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 (sub)headings to 8 pt. No text effects (bold, italics, underlined, etc.) could be applied to
(sub)headings.
Do not add a paragraph (by pressing Enter once) before or after subheading of the second or
third level. A paragraph before a heading of the first level is already added in the template.

2.5. Footnote formatting

The use of footnotes is allowed for the purposes of quotations or referencing to the source of
information, if considered necessary. However, footnotes should not be used for clarifications of
author’s notes; additionally, endnotes must not be used in the NRG Report.
Footnote text must be written in Garamond (10 pt.) and may not be justified; no paragraph
spacing must be set up and interlinear spacing must be set up to 1.

Section 3. Referencing guidelines

3.1. Main text and footnotes
The general rule remains the same as in the previous ILRGs – reports must follow the OSCOLA
Referencing Style.4

Useful tip:
In case of doubt, please, always apply a common sense and try to answer to the question: “Will
a person, who is not familiar with the legislation of my country, be able to find the source of
information to which I refer?”. If the answer to this question is no, please, elaborate your
referencing.

In addition to that, the following points must be respected:

− A footnote number must follow punctuation mark (after full stop, semicolon, etc.) in the
main body of the text. Footnote body must end with a full stop.
− There is no need to insert a footnote, if the full reference is given in the main body of the
text. For example: “According to the Article 12 of the Treaty of the European Union…”.
− Quotations from publications / legislation / case law must always be identical to the
original and be provided with the footnote (unless referencing is sufficient in the text).
− Links to digital resources must precede with the title, be included in brackets <link>, and
follow with the date of most recent access. Please, see example in the footnote.5

It is highly recommended that National Technical Editor (or the National Coordinator in the
absence of editor) checks all footnotes and links in the Report before submission of its first and
final drafts.

4Please, find a quick reference guide via the link, and the full guide here.
5OSCOLA, fourth edition: <https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/oscola_4th_edn_hart_2012.pdf>,
accessed 19 January 2020.

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 3.2. Tables
The presence of the tables of legislation in the first draft of the NRG Report is mandatory.
One of the two tables provided in the template must be used.
Disclaimer: during the last ILRG there was confusion about how to fill-in tables of legislation.
Please, find two visual examples of the filled-in tables.
1) Example for the countries, where legislation is not officially adopted in English
Provision in Latvian language Corresponding translation in English
Latvijas Republikas Satversme, 89. pants: The Constitution of the Republic of Latvia,
Article 89:
Valsts atzīst un aizsargā cilvēka pamattiesības The State shall recognise and protect
saskaņā ar šo Satversmi, likumiem un Latvijai fundamental human rights in accordance with
saistošiem starptautiskajiem līgumiem. this Constitution, laws and international
agreements binding upon Latvia.
Fizisko personu datu apstrādes likums, 2. Personal Data Processing Law, Article 2:
pants:
Likuma mērķis ir radīt tiesiskus The purpose of this Law is to create legal
priekšnoteikumus fiziskās personas datu preconditions for setting up of a system for
(turpmāk — dati) aizsardzības sistēmas the protection of personal data (hereinafter -
izveidošanai nacionālajā līmenī, paredzot šim the data) of a natural person at a national level
nolūkam nepieciešamās institūcijas, nosakot by providing for the institutions necessary for
to kompetenci un darbības pamatprincipus, kā such purpose, determining the competence
arī reglamentējot datu aizsardzības speciālistu and basic principles of operation thereof, as
darbību un datu apstrādes un brīvas aprites well as regulating operation of data protection
noteikumus. officers and provisions of data processing and
free movement.

2) Example for the countries, where legislation is officially adopted in English

Title of the legal act Provision text in English language
Offensive Weapons (1) Any expression used in this Part as it applies in relation to England
Act 2019, Article 63 and Wales and Scotland and which is defined in the Firearms Act
1968 has the same meaning as in that Act.
(2) Any expression used in this Part as it applies in relation to
Northern Ireland and which is defined in the Firearms (Northern
Ireland) Order 2004 (SI 2004/702 (NI 3)) has the same meaning as
in that Order.

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 3.3. Bibliography
Please, ensure that all sources of information used in the course of your research are included in
the bibliography. No formatting effects could be applied to bibliography (bold, italics, underline).
The bibliography must follow the structure and consists of two different sections: English titles
and titles in another language. The structure of the bibliography must be the following:

English titles
Legislation
⎯
Reports
⎯
Books
⎯
Periodicals
⎯
Digital resources
⎯
Case law
⎯

[Native language] titles

Legislation
⎯
Reports
⎯
Books
⎯
Periodicals
⎯
Digital resources
⎯
Case law
⎯

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